These Students Are An Example Of The Next Generation Of Detroiters Taking Care Of Business

“If Dan Gilbert from Quicken Loans or the Kresge Foundation put up this bench and paid for it by covering it with ads for payday lenders or some equally parasitic enterprise, would the city be tearing it down? The answer is no. They would be writing Goddamn commendations.” -Jeff Wattrick, Deadline Detroit

This is one of those stories that show you how the entrenched political elites in both Detroit and Michigan have become nothing more than apologists for the broken status quo.   A broken status quo that is turning the Detroit metro area and Michigan into the North Korea of the western hemisphere.  Politicians and political appointees in Michigan routinely hide behind government bureaucracy as if they were an ancient Chinese Emperor or a member of the old Soviet politburo.  But unlike Chinese Emperors who felt they were chosen by God to lead, Michigan’s political elites are just lazy and want to feed off the public trough for an easy paycheck.

Charles Molnar had a brilliant idea, or so he thought, one day after watching an elderly woman being forced to stand at a bus stop for nearly an hour waiting on an unreliable bus from what has been called the most inefficient, most unreliable and archaic bus system in the nation.

Molnar, a student at Wayne State University in Detroit recruited students from the Detroit Enterprise Academy, a K-8 school on the city’s east side, and from Cody High School to help him build benches for various bus stops around Detroit that lacked benches.  The students decided to get creative and armed with a sander and wood from demolished homes added a book shelf to the design to hold magazines and books so bus passengers had something to do to pass the time.

Enterprise Academy eighth-grader Kenyatta Sellers who was part of the team said,

“It was pretty cool to see the change happen.  Plus, it was nice to know we can make a change if we all come together to help our community.”

They placed the first one off Jefferson Avenue that runs parallel to the Detroit River and bus riders seem to enjoy it.

Unfortunately, the bureaucrats for the bankrupt City of Detroit are now threatening to dismantle and destroy the bench because it was not approved.

Angelica Jones, Detroit Department of Transportation’s deputy director, said, “There is protocol that takes place. It is our understanding that it did not take place regarding this bench.”

Molnar expressed his displeasure about the city’s decision to the Detroit Free Press,

“That’s ridiculous.  Now, there’s not going to be a bench there. Let them take that away from the community. A community that built that bench. A community that put their blood, sweat and tears in it. That’s all they wanted, a bench at the bus stop.”